U.S. Nears Shutdown as House Votes To Delay Health Law

By

Janet Hook,

Kristina Peterson and

Siobhan Hughes

Updated Sept. 29, 2013 12:53 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government moved to within hours of its first shutdown since 1996, as House Republicans redoubled their drive early Sunday to delay the new health care law and Senate Democrats stood firm against changing the law as a condition of funding federal departments.

Government workers brace for another potential shutdown, with the possibility of no back-pay, while Americans are wondering if they'll get their mail. Laura Meckler joins the News Hub with what to expect when you're expecting a government shutdown. (Photo: AP)

The standoff left little prospect that Congress could reach agreement on terms for funding the government by midnight Monday, when the current fiscal year expires. A shutdown would leave essential services operating but prompt federal agencies to suspend many functions and furlough hundreds of thousands of workers.

On a 231-192 vote, the House early Sunday passed a one-year delay of the health law, often called Obamacare, and attached it to a plan to fund the government through Dec. 15. The legislation now goes to the Senate. It also includes a provision repealing a tax on medical devices intended to help finance the health law, which the House approved on a 248-174 vote.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), in a statement issued hours before the House took up the bill, pledged to strip out the health provisions. He denounced the GOP vote as "pointless" and declared the impasse to be back at "Square 1."

ENLARGE

Speaker of the House John Boehner walks out of a meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill Saturday.
European Pressphoto Agency

The White House said that if the House bill reached President Barack Obama, who championed the health law, he would veto it.

The stare-down between the two chambers intensified as Democratic aides said Mr. Reid had no plans to call the Senate into session before its planned Monday afternoon return. That will be just hours before government funding for many federal functions runs out with the end of the fiscal year.

The next step is unclear, as no official business on Capitol Hill is planned for Sunday. There was no sign negotiations were being scheduled among congressional leaders, and no lawmakers—from graybeards to backbenchers—said they were optimistic that a shutdown would be averted.

In a blunt acknowledgment of that prospect, the House early Sunday also approved legislation to ensure that military personnel would be paid in the event of a shutdown.

Republicans have been determined to use the budget deadline as leverage in their long-running battle to undercut the health care law, which reaches a landmark moment on Tuesday, when one of its most important components takes effect. On that day, people can begin to sign up for health insurance policies through new online marketplaces.

"The American people don't want a government shutdown, and they don't want Obamacare," House Republican leaders said in a joint statement about their government-funding bill. "We will do our job and send this bill over, and then it's up to the Senate to pass it and stop a government shutdown."

"Maybe they'll panic and do the right thing for once," Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) said of the Senate. "Republicans are extremely unified at this point."

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) was under pressure from conservative House members to carry the fight against the health law as long as possible.

"Pushing until the very, very last minute has been one of the mainstays of the House GOP's negotiating strategy on budget issues," said Stan Collender a former aide to the House and Senate Budget Committees who is now a budget specialist at Qorvis Communications. If House Republicans eventually accede to a simple funding bill, shorn of changes to the new health law, it won't likely be until the 11th hour on Monday, he said.

Some Republicans held hope that the Senate would agree at least to repeal the medical devices tax, giving the House GOP a victory. In votes earlier this year, senators from both parties backed a repeal, but Democrats were unlikely to do so as part of the current budget fight.

Democrats criticized House Republican leaders for moving to pass measures so close to the deadline that were bound to fail in the Senate. The longest-serving member of the House, Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.) had particularly harsh words.

"This once-deliberative body has been taken over by knaves and know-nothings, content with putting partisan politics ahead of the American people,'' Mr. Dingell said.

He added: "I believe that this current Congress would be incapable of passing the Ten Commandments or even the Lord's Prayer, and today's actions have only further galvanized that belief."

Some 800,000 of more than two million federal workers were furloughed in a 1995 shutdown, with fewer workers affected in a following shutdown that stretched into early 1996. The number who would be furloughed this time is unclear and would vary by agency. The Pentagon has said that 400,000 civilian defense workers would be sent home.

Postal and air traffic control services would continue, and Social Security checks would be mailed. But many federal functions would be suspended, such as surveillance of flu and other diseases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National parks and museums would close.

Some Republicans said that the bill taken up by the House on Saturday night was unlikely to break the stalemate. In the Senate, Democratic leaders can strike the health care delay and medical device tax amendments with a 51-vote majority, then send the funding bill back to the House.

Lawmakers weren't sure what Mr. Boehner's next step would be in that case.

The House could pass the Senate's funding measure, stripped of provisions related to the health law, and send it to Mr. Obama, as the Senate has insisted. Lawmakers could also buy more time by passing a short extension of funding, perhaps for a week.

But Republicans said they might take another stab at amending the spending bill and dare the Senate to let the government shut down. At the same time, some of the GOP caucus's more centrist members worried about the rapidly shrinking window of time. "I hope it works, but it may not,'' said Rep. Charlie Dent (R., Pa.).

The House bill emerged midday from an uncommon Saturday meeting of the House Republican Conference, where GOP leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers agreed on the details of their bill.

Many House Republicans say their party would likely bear more of the public blame if the government is forced into a partial shutdown. But some argued Saturday that wasn't a reason to shift course.

Republicans said they believed that economic benefits flowing from a repeal of the medical-device tax would offset the loss of roughly $29 billion in revenue over 10 years, the sum that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the tax will generate.

And some Republicans argued that their proposal to delay the health-care law by one year represented a compromise between their earlier push to defund the law and Democrats' desire to keep it unchanged.

"Just delay this thing for one year—it's really not too much to ask," said Rep. Trey Radel (R., Fla.).

Democrats, by contrast, saw little compromise in the House Republican plan. "It's their way or the highway, and the highway leads over the cliff," said Rep. Sandy Levin (D., Mich.).

In the vote to delay the health law, two Republicans broke from their party to oppose a delay. They were New York Reps. Chris Gibson and Richard Hanna.

The White House and congressional Democrats are opposed to delaying the health law but have indicated they would entertain changes to improve the bill. But they have firmly opposed talking about even modest changes as part of negotiating the government funding bill.

Obama administration officials, scrambling to get the health law's insurance marketplaces ready to open on Tuesday, keep hitting technical problems, while government-funded field workers across the country say they aren't fully prepared to help Americans enroll in the program.

now if the CEO of a corporation allowed such a disaster to happen they would be in court and liable for the end results

who is accountable for the messy the unworkable health care act will rain down on America

no one - will be yet another failed attempt by the federal government to go where it should not go

I'd trade this debate for allowing the debt ceiling to go to infinity and beyond..but no allowing the Fed to buy any more govt debt...that will solve the problem as borrowing rates will go up which will force the govt to either raise taxes or cut spending...and we can have a mature debate on that topic.

ObamaCare is going to go into effect. The end game isn't to see America prosper it is to achieve personal power. Democrats know that to get elected you promise benefits. You don't need to worry about cost because the cost is so far down the road the average voter can't see that far. The Democrats also know that they won't be blamed because to blame the Democrats the constituents would have to admit they were wrong and ego won't permit that. Do you really think the "elite, sophisticated, inteligensia urbanites" are going to admit they were wrong about Obama...even with the endless scandals, the Gini coefficient getting worse, getting smacked around by Putin? They will make up endless excuses for him because if he is bad they made a mistake.

All empires end...America will bleed out slowly...we are huge, we have incredible wealth...it will take a long time and the Democrat voter won't feel it happening for a long time. In the early days with all the benefits they will even feel better and run around telling each other how smart they are...

Shortly after House Republicans unveiled their latest gambit targeting Obamacare in exchange for funding the government, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) went off-script by throwing his support behind the Senate bill, which is known as a clean continuing resolution, because it continues government funding without major amendments to other legislation.

"Let's see what the Senate sends back," Dent told reporters Saturday. "If they send back another clean CR, I suspect -- again, I'm not making a decision on what's going to be on the floor -- a clean CR would likely to be on the floor at some point."

"I’m prepared to vote for a clean resolution tomorrow," he added Sunday, according to The New York Times' Jonathan Weisman. "It’s time to govern. I don’t intend to support a fool’s errand."

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), deputy majority whip of the House, told reporters that the decision to pass a clean government funding bill belonged entirely to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

"He didn't mention it, but I'm sure he could if he wanted to," Cole said as he emerged from Saturday's meeting.

"We're pretty much out of options at this point,'' said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). "They're all giddy about it. You know who benefits the most here from a shutdown? The Democrats benefit and they know that."

While President Barack Obama was ending the war in Iraq, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, ending the life of Osama Bin Laden, signing the Affordable Health Care act into law, ending the reign of the dictator of Libya, averting what would have been a catastrophic confrontation with Syria, opening diplomatic negotiations with Iran for the first time in 20 years while maintaining a loving family, the Republicans were doing everything they could to destroy what in the final outcome will surely be Barack Obama's legacy as one of America's greatest presidents.

Barack Obama shines at a magnitude greater than the entire GOP, so Republicans are continually at a disadvantage. So, what do they do? They punish America with a Senator who is so in love with himself that he has his pe up his own as, a troubled congresswoman, who speaks with God, a goofball who can see Russia from Alaska and an endless list of other crude, mediocre members of the Tea Party. And now in what will be the final act of desperation, the GOP wants to shut the government down. Nice going Republicans, but you lose.

Dingell is Correct The House of Representatives is no longer a Deliberative Body!!!

The moment Nancy Pelosi uttered her infamous, "Just a few more minutes when the Bill passes, we will know what is in it," the House of Representatives became a mindless body. How can anyone pass a Bill with over 1,000 pages in it and not know what they approved? But that is exactly what EVERY DEMOCRAT in the HOUSE did. Not one Republican voted for it. DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF THE SENATE DID THE SAME THING with absolutely ZERO favorable votes from Republicans.

Mr. Dingel is correct but this mindlessness began with his party, THE DEMOCRATS. His moronic colleague from Michigan, Sander Levin, has the audacity to chastise the Republicans members of the House for their "my way or the highway" attitude when in fact that is exactly what Pelosi, Dingell, and Levin did when they crammed Obamacare down the throats of all Republicans when Obamacare was passed.

Go ahead and shut Washington down. Those of us outside of the Beltway will be glad to see Obamacare stopped.

The thread can go on and on about this and that. But here's the thing, the president campaigned hard of aca and was twice elected. meaning, the public has chosen over the direction they wanted to go in. Nothing else matters. By the way over 50% want to keep aca and fix it rather than dump it. less than 40% want to dump it.

Obamacare {ACA} is Government in business like " Priceline or Kayak or Expedia is to a cheap plane ticket . We have a Healthcare program it is called medicare for people that need help ! This is a possy scam for more tax"s and bigger Government ...Government gone wild on selling drugs and Hospitals are going to assault people by filling beds for profit and people will get abused by doctors and hospitals to fill the pockets of wall street and politicians with inside trading... People will have so high of a deduction they will lose there savings and property if not to the IRS to Fraud in healthcare. Obamacare will take the life out of America and add to birth defects and drug abuse. Pharmaceutical drugs are the number 1 killer in deaths in America now .. Romneycare in massachusetts assaulted me with a $9000 bill that should had been no more then $500 .. I have the proof !

Kindly remember that, when Thomas Jefferson wrote and our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and declined to continue to exist under British rule, these brave souls didn't exactly proffer precisely was the government what they desired as a replacement for British except that it provide for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Such is the case with "ObamanationCare." Indeed, garbage is really easy to smell and the stench of "ObamanationCare" is all too obvious to any thoughtful person who cares about liberty who is able to eclipse three digits on the Stanford Binet scale.

Accordingly, it is hardly necessary produce a precise recital of what should replace "ObamanationCare" in order to credibly oppose this rogue work product of the clear and present danger to the future of this country known as "The Obamanation" whose record compellingly documents that he is nothing more than an utterly incompetent and profoundly narcissistic liar who cares only about himself.

The economic effect of a shutdown depends on how long it lasts. If it's just a few days, I don't believe it will have much of an impact on economic growth. It could, however, rattle the markets in the short-term, potentially causing a long overdue correction. If it lasts for a few weeks, the impact will be worse. The last time the government shut down it is estimated it shaved about a half of a percentage point of GDP for the fourth quarter, 1995.

While I believe the U.S. and global economies are expanding and poised to continue growing, there is little doubt the economy was healthier in 1995 and 1996. We were in the midst of a 10-year bull run and a tech-led boom was about to occur. A government shut down could hurt more this time around as the economy isn't growing like it was for most of the 90s.

The effect of a shutdown is also dependent on the scope. There are many functions that will continue as they always have. Anything related to national security, public safety or programs written into law, like Social Security, will remain intact. Federal workers are separated into two classes; essential and non-essential workers. The essential workers will continue to show up for work while those deemed non-essential will be furloughed.

However, like the debt ceiling, I believe this will be resolved before we hit the deadline and if not, then soon after. Congress knows the economy is not as strong as it was in 1995 and 1996 and does not want to impede economic growth in any way so the likelihood of a resolution is high. With millions already out of work, it's unlikely the government would send home another 1.2 million workers, which is how many workers the government estimates it would furlough in the event of a shut down. "

According to the Wealth-X/UBS World Ultra Wealth Report 2013, the number of UHNWs across the world rose by 6.3 per cent to 199,235, from 187,380 the year before. Their combined fortune was of $27.8 trillion, a 7.7 per cent increase on $25.8 trillion in 2012 (and equivalent to 40 per cent of the world’s GDP). GOP represents the UHNWs who do not need government. Government is just the entity to collect taxes.

Shutting the Gov't down will be a good thing. It will show the American people that we don't need near as much Gov't as we have. The Republicans are always saying they are for less/limited Gov't , now is their chance to prove it. This country is drowning in Gov't. As a practical matter,if you are a hard working, tax paying citizen that is conservative then your are an enemy of the Gov't.Why else would the NSA be spying on you or the IRS harassing individuals and companies.Just look at what is happening to JP Morgan Chase. It is much better to shut this monster down and to start to dismantle it rather than to keep on feeding it.= Dick Lane

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Tom Price, M.D. (GA-06), introduced the Empowering Patients First Act (H.R. 2300) today, which would permanently repeal President Obama’s health care law and replace it with patient-centered solutions. He previously sponsored the Empowering Patients First Act in the 111th and 112th Congresses as H.R. 3400 and H.R. 3000, respectively.

Obamacare will not be delayed. The president will stand firm. Boehner will be out as speaker after 2014 midterms. He is a failure as a leader. Keep bringing it GOP, your digging a hole so deep you can kiss 2016 good bye because you clearly keep showing you have no ability to lead at the executive level.

Covering up with lies about Benghazi, using the IRS to target his enemies, AP scandal, monitoring reporter James Rosen and his parents! Holder perjury, Fast and Furious, Pigford. Where does the man find time to golf as he destroys the country? .

This is a bill which passed through the process of both houses, was vetted by the supreme court and approved the by the executive branch...(the definition of how government is supposed to work in this country.)

Now the gop attaches it to a non related bill as a poison pill. The precedent this sets is dangerous and it amounts to blackmail.

If you disagree on the bill that's one thing, and the argument can be had on the bill by itself, but not as a bargaining chip attached to the nation's economic viability.

Wrong again, Floyd. I seem to recall voters proudly announcing that they had cast 5-6 votes for him... Obama winning more than 100% of the vote in some districts (math is hard for Liberals), and IRS harassment of Conservative groups.

Your percentages are reversed, Floyd. By the way, he campaigned on free stuff and a phony war on women, not obmacare. He has divided the country, part of his plan to ruin the USA, the country he hates.

That you give you a good insight as to where American's views and support lie. And it isn't with the republican party. In fact, today's republican party does not resemble the party I grew up with. Time to change the party's name to Mudd.

Yeah, I'm enjoying all of the predictions of doom, as if they are recommending for us the course of action that is in our own best interest. I guess we should come to expect this from authoritarian folks who always believe they know everything that is in everyone's best interest, and and are always ready to prove it by passing a new law.

The Republicans oppose this bill on a practical and philosopical basis. The practical opposition is that they believe that it costs too much and will impose an unreasonable level of government regulation over heatlhcare delivery. The philosophical opposition is that they do not believe in principle that the government should be involved in healthcare.

Opposition on both those levels will prevent the Republicans from making any compromises. Furthermore, they know that once Obamacare is implemented, then it's a done deal that will never be repealed. So, they're going to stake the entireity of their political capital on defeating it. I think it's a futile exercise, but they're not going to be talked out of it. It's what they HAVE to do based on their pinciples.

It would suit me fine if I never heard another word about a federal government , except for maybe in history books . My governor can call me and ask to pass the hat with other governors to connect a road or take up funds to blow up a rogue country in unilateral defense . Flush the rest of it . That would be a good limited government .

This is a non-plan. Based on the failed Texas and California plans which collapsed. Insurance companies can still cherry-pick. Taxes go up, big time! Among other loosely defined concepts which just offer up a very minimum level of health care....NEXT!!

Nope. Not ONE Republican vote, Pinkerman. There were so many bribes and under-the-table, behind-closed-doors dealings with ObamaCare, if I were you -- well, I'd be pretty embarrassed to back this fiasco.

But then... I thank my lucky stars that I'm one of those who laughed at the promises of all that "free" stuff and promises of "hope and change."

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